On August 22, 2012, literary
agent Molly Friedrich received
a query letter from Sally Field.

Friedrich’s reply? “I don’t rep
celebrity bios,” she tells the

Connection. “I’m not interested
in big one-hit wonders.”
Still, Field shared a keynote
address she’d written for the
Omega Institute, and Friedrich
suggested they meet the next
time Field was in New York City.

That meeting led to an
agreement that Friedrich would
look at the first 80 to 100 pages
of the book. Friedrich says that
when Field got back to her it
was with “something young,”
but, she adds, “there was the
start of something real there.”
As Field recalls, Friedrich said
that if she liked Field’s work, she
would represent that, not Field
as a celebrity. According to
Field, “That rang all my bells,
because that meant she would
feel the work had merit, and
that it was worth her time and
expertise, and not that she saw
that she was going to sell me
as a celebrity.”
After years spent fitting writing
around acting, Field submitted
the completed manuscript.

Although that first draft “needed
more response,” Friedrich says
that it’s a “classically proportioned mother-daughter story.”
She also appreciated that Field
“writes about the process of
acting in a way I’ve rarely read.

It struck me how hard she’s
worked all her life, and how
unglamorous it is.”
She adds, “The book is
wonderful, powerful and
moving. I’m impossibly proud
of this book.”—SEP